[Sidequest] Creature of Menace

“How is this old woman so strong!”

Katla opened the door to the room where the old woman lay in wait, saw Sólveig in a rage, and promptly closed the door again. Behind her, the spirit beast stood, watching patiently. Katla didn’t like the way their eyes glowed. It always looked somewhat sarcastic. “I’m just letting her resolve the situation,” she said, somewhat defensive.

The beast looked down and tested the tip of her knife. She didn’t comment. There was a yell of anger, and the door opened again. “You’re meant to help,” said Sólveig.

“What am I supposed to do?” said Katla. She glanced over Sólveig’s shoulder. “Duck.”

Sólveig didn’t duck, but she was built approximately like a brick wall. The incoming sidetable crashed to pieces against her shoulder and she didn’t even seem to notice it. “This woman,” she said to Katla, “She’s unholy. Something is wrong with her. She needs a stronger solution.” She stared, pointedly, at the beast.

“You want to use…” Katla paused, trying to reconcile Sólveig’s plan with reality. “You have a big axe. She’s in the grave already. Just hit her.” As if she would use such an expensive weapon on a geriatric fighter!

“I have tried.”

Sólveig looked over her shoulder as Katla pushed herself up on her tip-toes, both of them staring. The old woman was invisible in the smoke. Katla thought she saw some faint movement behind the pile of furniture, but it was gone as soon as she tried to focus.

“Is this because of your ankle? I might still have some liquor left.” She fumbled underneath her cloak.

Sólveig’s hand closed on her wrist. She was doing a very good job of looming. “This has nothing to do with my ankle. Even in my prime… she is a beast. A creature of menace. I need further weapons. You know the kind.”

“We are low on blood. I’m not wasting it on-that kind of fighting requires much more fuel than we have! You would waste our creature on an old woman!”

Sólveig was looking more unhappy by the moment. “You used the beast on a door,” she said. “Just a door! Couldn’t you open it yourself?”

Katla sighed and stared, for a moment, at the ceiling while she tried to gain some patience. Explaining about her success would do nothing for Sólveig, who only respected success in battle. Why hadn’t she sent Stáli to work with her instead of supervise the prisoners? She was his sister. He had been given this trial by the gods, instead of Katla, who had only been assigned it by mere mortals. “I will fight with you. Is that suitable?”

Instead of responding, Sólveig turned back to the fight, so Katla decided it was good enough. She turned to the Beast. “I-“

The beast raised her eyebrows. “Good luck,” she said.

Always so sarcastic. Katla tried not to look behind her, or make eye contact with those green glowing irises as she stepped inside the room and closed the door behind her. Then she didn’t have to think about it anymore, because a wardrobe was falling towards her and she had to dodge.

It didn’t take long for her to realize Sólveig was right. This woman was not right. Katla dodged the first wardrobe, but as she rolled she was thumped on the arm by a chair leg. When she tried to pull away from that, the old woman grabbed her by the wrist and yanked her upright.

“Another rat, then?” said the old woman. She had a pipe in her mouth, still smoking. It just wasn’t right! This wasn’t how battles were fought! “This temple has an infestation, I think. I was an exterminator in my youth. You won’t stay here for long.”

“I am certainly not a rat.”

Katla was beginning to argue further, about definitions and modern science, but all of that fled her mind as the woman twisted her arm and her mind filled with pain. She could hear a distinct crack.

There was also screaming. Maybe she was the one screaming. She wasn’t entirely sure.

She was on the ground, she realized. The screaming had stopped, but the old woman was gone. Katla shoved herself up, coughing, and tried to straighten herself with her one working arm. She was alone again.

She could hear Sólveig’s battle cries and more thumping of furniture. This was what she had earned for trying to fight. Her arm was a screaming mass of pain. She leaned against the wall and nursed her injury, staring into the smoke. How was this room not on fire?

“Did you get her?” she shouted. Maybe Sólveig would fix it, after all. There were benefits to working with a madwoman.

There was a shriek of rage. No, then.

Well. Sometimes Sólveig was right. Katla leaned forward and, using her good hand, awkwardly sorted through her three remaining bottles of blood. She kept dropping them, her heart thudding in fear every time the vials slipped out. Why had the woman hurt her arm? It was as if she’d known Katla was important.

But how could she know? It wasn’t as if Katla labeled herself as a Necromancer….

“Hurry up!” Sólveig, again. “She’s climbing!”

“I’m doing my best!”

Katla fumbled another vial. No! She couldn’t use that one- it was her newest. Fresher, better. She wasn’t going to waste it. She shoved it back into her cloak and tried to find some from Ursus, instead. It should be just enough for this problem.

Above her, she could hear more clattering. There was a crash, and then a laugh. From the old woman? Then there was a creak and a sliding.

It sounded like it was coming from above her, actually. As Katla dabbed out some blood on her finger, she couldn’t help herself. She glanced up.

The old woman had stacked some furniture up and gone all the way up to a tile. Now she was sliding it back, revealing the… sky?

“She’s getting away, you fool! Cast faster!”

Katla’s heart was beating so fast she could hear it in her ears, now. She could barely calm her hands. They were shaking in pain. But she had to cast this before the woman escaped. She heard a shout as Sólveig jumped and grabbed the woman by the shoulders, both of them falling down the tower of furniture.

One long, trembling stroke to make the outer circle. Then rune after rune, instructing the beast on exactly what to do, where to go, whose orders to listen to. When to stop taking energy, when to-

“She’s climbing! Katla, speed up!”

“I’m doing my best!” Katla fumbled and missed the top of one rune. She swore under her breath and fixed it, then began on the inner circle. Another rune, specifying which beast it was, and…

“You called me.” The spirit beast had stepped into the room so silently Katla hadn’t noticed her. Katla swallowed, then pointed up. The spirit beast looked up. Her eyebrows raised minutely. “I don’t see an old woman within this temple.”

Katla looked up, too. Her shoulders collapsed in defeat.

The old woman had slipped through the ceiling- and past the outside limit of Katla’s spell. A necessary limit, to stop too much draw on the magic, but….

As they watched, the old woman’s figure disappeared from the tiny sliver of the roof they could see. “Sólveig, uh, you could-”

“Forget it,” said Sólveig. “Do you still have that liquor?”